Data analysis is about finding unknown knowns: You have all the data, but you don't understand it. That is probably what is so satisfying about it. (See, that was another unknown known: I knew the Orwell quib, I knew the way data analysis works and I knew that both are satisfying. But I had never put them together before...)

Orwell's nugget of truth (more than a quip, imo), is that the books people put down with a feeling that they have read something exceptional that they will not forget (but life plays tricks...), are those that reveal something to the reader in an "Of course!" moment. Akin to the dot-connecting you mention above.

(The tricks life plays are that we can learn things, then forget them again. And in modern developed economies, an entire marketing, advertising, and communications industry is there to help us.)